In this issue:

• Tip Corner - Timing - by Brad Moore
• API Corner - by Reference - by Brad Moore
• Youth Corner: Creating Status Bars - by David Conner
• SpriteByte - The Absolute Minimum - by Alyce Watson
• StyleBits 3 - statictext - by Janet Terra
• Shaped Window - by Janet Terra
• Recursion Revistied - by Brad Moore
• Eddie's Lessons This Month: - by Alyce Watson
  • Eddie v2 - Modularity
  • File Input/Output with Eddie
  • Running LB from the Command Line with Eddie
  • Filedialog with Eddie
  • Eddie
• Beginners Programming Series, Part 11 - by Brad Moore
  • Introduction
  • Expanding our Game
  • Working with Sprites
  • Appendix
• Newsletter help
• Index

Notes from the Editor:

Welcome to issue 132 of the Liberty Basic Newsletter - 100% Worble Free!

Albert Einstein has to be one of my favorite people, scientists and thinkers of recent times. His life is a plethora of contradictions. As a child he was slow in school and did particularly bad in math. As a young man in university he struggled with what to do with his life, resigning himself to physics and becoming a teacher one day. As a young and eager physicist he was unable to find work and was about to give it all up and become an insurance salesman. As a patent clerk (a job he did poorly at) he wrote three papers and formed four theories that shook the physics establishment and to this day challenge those who study in the field. Working as an outsider he rewrote the laws of physics of his day. In discovering the quantum he helped form a branch of physics he refused to believe in and spent the later days of his life trying to disprove. His physics helped a nation embroiled in wars on two oceans build an atomic bomb - a technology he later implored the world to bring under control.

He was a thinker and a pragmatist. He received the Nobel Prize for physics for his work on the quantum, but never was recognized for his most amazing work on the Special Theory of Relativity - a ground breaking work that has revolutionized the modern world. Without it GPS, satellites, rocket trips and other modern revolutions would not be possible. He has been attributed with many quotes and is so quotable because he was such a deep thinker. I think one of my favorite things he ever said, something I find inspiring, was his response to a reported when asked about how he conceived his remarkable theories. He said, and I must paraphrase: "I was not a better thinker than everyone else, I just took more time to think slower.".

I think that the creativity found in thinking about and discovering new properties to our universe at large, and programming has some similarities. I take from Alert's words that I don't have to Bill Gates to contribute something useful to my chosen field. It maters less that I might think a little slower - it is the creativity and the opportunity I take to grow and stretch and create - from it I can make great things.

I hope you find as you use Liberty Basic and enjoy the freedom of creation and expression that programming brings, that you too can identify with the words of Albert Einstein.

This month we have a very packed newsletter. Our guest writers, no strangers to long time readers, have contributed some really great articles yet again. Alyce Watson is back with a hard hitting Eddie the code editor, version 2. You don't want to miss this one. Packed with goodies for EVERY programmer, regardless of the type of program you are writing.

Alyce follows this with another great SpriteByte installment. This one is really one of the best. Alyce takes us back to the beginning and really explains why sprites do what they do and how to integrate them into your program. I must admit, I was astonished at how well this article dovetails into the 11th installment of the Beginners Programming Series which deals with much of the same ideas, but without the excellent depth that Alyce has put into this article. If you ever plan to use sprites this is a must read.

Janet is back with two great submissions - the first being installment three of the StyleBits corner. This time Janet covers some of the boarder format styles that can be applied to statictext fields.

Janet has also revisited shaped forms, bringing them into the 32bit world, while she expands in her most expert way on the subject.

Many people have been asking about it (or maybe for it!), and so I am presenting installment eleven of the Beginning Porgramming Series. In this installment we complete a vector graphics based pong game and then convert it to a sprite based game. So it isn't Worbles (and Bill sure is glad), but it does have an entertaining value…

David Conner, who maintains his own youth oriented newsletter has contributed a nice article on adding status bars to your application. We have inaugurated a new "Youth Corner" with David's submission. While we do not intend to displace the youth newsletter, it is nice to hear a voice from the younger generation coming into the hobby. If you fall into the category and would like to contribute to a future Youth Corner please review the submission requirements and then contact one of us on the staff. We can not promise to use all submissions.

Speaking of the submissions requirements, it has gone through a little bit of an update recently. If you plan to submit, youth or other-wise, please take a look. Remember we are always looking for great new content that is refreshing and innovative. Tell us about special techniques you are using, projects you are working on or other things you would like to read about and/or share.

Remember we value your comments. Let us know how we are doing. If you have corrections, please post those. Got an idea of something you want someone else to write about. Let us know. Post all comments on the Newsletter board at the Liberty Basic Forum.

- Brad Moore